A known roof apparatus for a vehicle includes a pair of left side and right side guide rails, a movable panel, a housing and a pair of drive force transmitting members. The pair of guide rails extends along a front/rear direction of a vehicle along both side portions of an opening portion formed on a roof of the vehicle. The movable panel for opening and closing the opening portion is supported by the pair of guide rails so as to be slidable in the front/rear direction of the vehicle. The housing extends in the width direction of the vehicle along a front portion of the opening portion and is connected to a front end surface of each of the pair of guide rails. A drive mechanism and a casing are provided at the housing. The drive force transmitting member is inserted into the casing. The drive force transmitting member is guided by and slides along the casing and the pair of guide rails, and thus moves the sliding panel in the front/rear direction of the vehicle for opening and closing the opening.
For example, a sunroof device for use in a vehicle in which drive cables are used as the drive force transmitting member is disclosed in JPH7-149153A (hereinafter referred to as Patent reference 1). The sunroof device for use of the vehicle according to the Patent reference 1 is constituted by the housing, and a guide plate which is fixedly attached to a lower face of the housing and into which the drive cables are inserted.
In a sliding roof device disclosed in JP3659632B (hereinafter referred to as Patent reference 2), spur tooth rack belts are used instead of the above-stated drive cables as the drive force transmitting member. Each of the spur tooth rack belts includes spur teeth protruding in a direction perpendicular to a longitudinal direction of the spur tooth rack belt in a manner that the surfaces, on which the spur teeth are formed, of the spur tooth rack belts face each other.
However, in case that the spur tooth rack belts disclosed in the Patent reference 2 are used as the drive force transmitting member of the sunroof device for use in the vehicle disclosed in the Patent reference 1, a tooth contact noise that will be explained may occur.
Generally, in the roof apparatus for the vehicle in which the drive cables are used as the drive force transmitting member, a front end surface of each of the guide rails, against which the casing is abutted in order to connect the casing to each of the guide rails, is formed so as to be perpendicular to passages formed at the guide rails for having the driving cables inserted therein.
In the roof apparatus for the vehicle in which the spur tooth rack belts are used as the drive force transmitting member, in case that the front end surface of each of the guide rails, to which the casing is connected, is formed so as to be perpendicular to the passages of the spur tooth rack belts, the front end surface is positioned parallel to each of the spur teeth of the spur tooth rack belts, that is, parallel to the direction in which each of the spur teeth protrudes.
Consequently, in case that the casing is connected to each of the guide rails in an offset manner even slightly in the width direction of the vehicle, and thus a step is formed between an inner wall surface (a surface on which the spur teeth slide) of the casing and an inner wall surface (a surface on which the spur teeth slide) of the each of the guide rails, each of the spur teeth may come into contact with more than one edge portions of the front end surface of each of the guide rails at a time when passing through the connecting portion between the casing and each of the guide rails in order to move from the casing to the guide rails. This may cause a noise (the tooth contact noise).
A need thus exists for a roof apparatus for a vehicle, which is not susceptible to the drawback mentioned above.